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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29180640">your honey dew eyes draw me in (and let me fall)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/KermitSaysGayRights/pseuds/KermitSaysGayRights'>KermitSaysGayRights</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>the shadows of our deaths walk the earth together [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Criminal Minds (US TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Dead Emily Prentiss, F/F, Hurt No Comfort, emily is not actually a ghost, it's just in pens mind if that isn’t clear, no beta we die like emily in this fic, penelope is going through it</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 13:08:41</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,239</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29180640</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/KermitSaysGayRights/pseuds/KermitSaysGayRights</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Emily’s passed, yet Penelope can’t stop seeing her no matter where she hides. Her ghost following her even into the darkest of corners.</p><p>Is it a blessing or a curse?</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Penelope Garcia/Emily Prentiss</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>the shadows of our deaths walk the earth together [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2154261</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>your honey dew eyes draw me in (and let me fall)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>pain, pain, pain bby</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="p1">
  <span class="s2">Emily got a headstone, it was a sleek grey with no cracks. There was a tree that loomed over it, a willow, Penelope thinks. The grass there was kept somewhat long making it look as if Emily had long been buried which wasn’t the case. A fresh cutting of lavender sat atop the newly placed soil. Penelope made sure the flowers never wilted, when they did she’d replace them. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Day in and day out, she’d return. Check for cracks, there never were any. She’d run her hands over the engraving of Emily’s name and whisper her apologies. If it was up to Penelope she’d stay there for hours, just sitting and talking to a little slab of stone. Unfortunately it got cold and it got dark so she’d say her <em>goodbyes</em>, day in and day out.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">It’d been a week since she was buried, two since she passed. Penelope still couldn’t make it back inside their, <em>her </em>apartment. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">She spent the first few days on Derek’s couch and the next few wrapped up in his arms. It all was a little too much for her, she didn’t giggle, she didn’t smile, her eyes didn’t light up. Her <em>spark </em>was gone and she didn’t have the energy to find it, Penelope didn’t know if she did go looking if she’d ever find it again.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">It all was a little too much and not nearly enough all at the same time. Penelope was drifting farther and farther and she couldn’t stop, her line had been cut.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">The second week was worse, she thinks. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">She had tried to spend the night at her apartment but never even made it up the steps. She ended up curled into a ball in JJ’s guest room with the ghost of Emily’s hands rubbing sweet circles into her back.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Penelope had set certain boundaries for herself after Emily’s death and that had crossed one somehow.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">She couldn’t walk past the tiny cafe down the street from where she lived, <em>you’ll see her sitting there in the windowsill.</em></span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Penelope couldn’t go to work, <em>you’ll smell her perfume when you walk past her desk, you’ll see her sitting there. She’ll be in your office playing with her hair.</em></span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">And of course there was no possible way she could walk into what used to be their apartment, now only her’s. <em>Her paintings will taunt you, her clothes hang there watching you.</em></span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">The ghost of Emily lives in your home and worst of all she lives in every step you take, following you around like a sick twist of fate.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">——</span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">The third week rolled around and Penelope made her way up the apartment stairs. She grabbed the key taped under the small lavender plant at their, <em>her </em>doorstep. Emily had taken the main pair of keys when they left for work <em>that</em> morning, she didn’t know only Penelope would return home.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">The door clicker open, everything was how it was left, what else did she expect? Emily to be fluttering around the apartment, leaving things out and cupboards open, that’s what she <em>wanted</em> to see. All the door opened to was a cold apartment.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">The living room wreaked of vanilla coconut, the candle still burning on the mantle. Penelope could see Emily dancing around the place, giggling at the smoke a candle that small should not make. She could see her sitting on the counter licking batter Penelope was sure she told her not to.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Penelope drifted into the bedroom, letting herself crumble onto the bed. The warm black blanket only reminding her of Emily’s complaints, of how much color there was.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Emily’s dragged out words danced about her head, never quite fully sinking in. Penelope <em>tried </em>to will them away, turning her head in frustration it only led her to see her vanity, still full of dark lipstick and eyeliner. Her own keys sat next to a dark mauve lip color.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Emily was sitting there, pouting at Penelope through the mirror. She’d go on and on about whatever silly things, some not so silly that had happened on her latest case. The conversation was always light and breezy even if the topic didn’t seem so. This time no sound came out of Emily’s mouth, her lips moved, but no sound. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Penelope got up, Emily wasn’t there, she knew it and she’d pretend that she didn’t, for moment pretend she was. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Moving through the still too cold apartment, she stopped at the balcony. Penelope didn’t dare step out on the concrete, instead she let her eyes focus on what wasn’t there.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Emily’s legs dangled through the bars, her hair caught up in the light wind, her long fingers wrapped around a blunt. Spencer sat next to her, laughing at surely a somewhat buzzed Emily had said. The wind picked up again and they had floated away, never really there but their energy still lingered.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Penelope didn’t waste any more time looking at an empty balcony, instead opting to duck into the bathroom. She knew if she looked to her right she’d see her again, sitting at the bathtub edge. So she looked right back at her own reflection in the mirror.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Penelope’s eyes were red, slightly puffy like she’d been crying, she had been and she will be later. Remnants of mascara below her eyes meshed with heavy eye bags. Her lips were cracked like she hadn’t drank any water, she hadn’t.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">If only she left the bathroom then.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">She glanced at the porcelain basin of the sink, splashing water on her face. Penelope looked back up to be greeted by an apparition of Emily standing behind her, brushing her teeth like they used to every night and morning. Emily reached out for the basin to spit out her toothpaste. Penelope would of expected her to phase through her, at this point she seemed more real than she did. Instead she dissolved before even reaching Penelope.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Penelope closed the bathroom door, she would’ve locked it if she could.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">——</span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Shortly after encountering yet another imaginary Emily, Penelope left.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">The September air was cool but not frigid, Penelope could stand it. It made her nose and cheeks turn a light shade of pink, her fingers aswell. Her coat kept her torso safe from the cold whilst her hands were left exposed. Emily used to let them hold hands the cold, even when her coat covers her hands and would surely keep her warmer than Penelope would.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">She walked faster.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">The click of her boots on the sidewalk seemed to echo in her head. Penelope didn’t know where she was going till she saw the warm light of the tiny cafe. Just like she knew she would see, Emily sat in the booth next to the windowsill. She was sipping on what Penelope could recognize as hot cocoa, even from afar.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">The door dinged alerting the few workers and patrons to her presence. Penelope quickly mumbled the order she knew by heart.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Hot cocoa, hazelnut and cinnamon on top with light whipped cream and four marshmallows, it’d take her years for her to ever forget it. Reid would of told her the complex love behind knowing someone’s order but to her it was simple.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <em>
    <span class="s2">How could she forget?</span>
  </em>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Penelope took a seat in the window booth, across from Emily who still sat there. Of course, Penelope <em>knew</em> she wasn’t really there but she couldn’t help to whisper out her name, <em>just in case.</em></span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Emily’s head did infact turn to face her’s but only to act out a scene she once used to apart of. Emily would giggle, take a sip, then reach out and <em>disappear</em>. The fading in and out of reality was new but everything else was the same. All the way up to the way the seat cushion caved in upon her sitting down.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">All the same but no longer what it used to be, what it <em>would </em>of been.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Penelope took her time, sipping quietly and slowly at her cocoa. She wouldn’t dare to take her eyes off the window, in fear that if she turned she would see Emily’s sweet smile looking right back at her.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">As soon as she finished, she quickly left the small cafe she would of once called a second home.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">——</span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">The night was the worst, she always knew it would be and it always was. Penelope would lay there for hours, longing, wishing for Emily’s arms to wrap around her and they never would. Not even the ghost of her would grace her with a fleeting touch.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Eventually Penelope would drift off to sleep and she’d dream of the same thing every time. She’d be back in that hospital room, holding Emily’s hands, letting her say goodbye as she drifted off, never coming back. Derek and Spencer had been in the room when she <em>actually</em> said goodbye, in her dreams they never made an appearance. She always alone in that room, no doctor, no friends, no family.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Penelope learned something about death that day. That even when someone says they’re okay with going, their eyes will tell a different story. They whisper to you, to save them, that they don’t want to leave, that you need to make them hold on and you never can.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Emily’s eyes looked like they were coated with clear honey, glossy, wet and <em>sickly sweet.</em> Her eyes pleaded with Penelope to save her, to stop her from slipping away from the world. Whist her eyes begged and screamed to be saved Emily spoke a different story, one of acceptance.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Penelope’s still not sure which ones true, which story both filled with sorrow was the truth. It keeps her up at night, those eyes look back at her, still begging every time she closes her own. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Every night from the first one to her twenty first she’d woken up, out of breath. Derek had been there to calm her down the first week and JJ the second. This time she woke up, dashing to the bathroom with a <em>ghost </em>following behind her.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">She stood there, hunched over, water dripping from her face. Once she looked up into the mirror she was greeted with Emily standing behind her, this time sporting the same cuts and bruises she last saw her with. Worst of all her <em>eyes</em>, they looked like they had been coated in clear honey, sickly sweet.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">It wasn’t a memory this time, not her brushing teeth, smoking, dancing, or complaining. Emily looked so so real and it broke her, Penelope broke. Her knees gave out and she sobbed, leaning up against her sink. It wasn’t pretty, she was gasping and screaming, she was sure her neighbors would call the cops if not out of worry but annoyance of loud she was.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">No one even knocked on her door.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">——</span>
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">The next day the sun rose and she woke up, her back sore from laying on the bathroom tile.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Penelope made her way, slowly to the kitchen. Emily stood there, this time slouched over and making eggs at the stove. And yet again when Penelope got close enough the memory, the <em>ghost </em>of Emily disappeared once again.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Penelope made eggs that morning.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">In the afternoon she watched Jeopardy and <em>tried </em>to ignore the apparition of Emily painting in the corner where she knew an <em>empty </em>easel sat. Eventually she gave in and watched what would look like an empty corner to anyone else.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">The night came again and she fell asleep on the couch only to be awoken by the same nightmare then to be greeted by a memory of Emily. This time she knew it was a memory, no cuts, no bruises, no sickly sweet eyes. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Penelope watched Emily sway side to side dancing with an invisible person, who she knew <em>was</em> her.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">She fell back to sleep, pretending that when she woke up Emily would be sitting next to her.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Penelope woke up the next morning to no Emily in the kitchen, or the bathroom, or the bedroom, or the balcony, she checked. The clocked ticked to noon and she walked out of her apartment, hoping to grab the mail as quickly as possible. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">She stopped when Emily stood infront of her mailbox, looking through what would be year old mail according to her memory. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Day in and day out Penelope would see Emily in places she knew she wasn’t. Some days she’d pretend she didn’t see her, others she pretended Emily was really there.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">It was like her life had been put on some sick loop. Penelope had gone to therapy for it to be explained as deep trauma, her therapist told her she’d go away eventually. The longest Penelope had gone without seeing Emily had been a week then she’d just appear, sitting on her couch like she never left.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Emily’s ghost would stay with her for an eternity, at every turn, at every stop she’d be there staring right back at Penelope. If- Whenever she’d reach out she’d fade away, only to reappear moments sometimes days later. Penelope couldn’t be sure if the figment of Emily her brain had made up was haunting her or keeping her company, maybe it was a little of both.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">The worst was when she’d feel her honey coated eyes staring back at her in the dead of night. No matter how many times she’d see those eyes they always yelled for her to save her. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Maybe she should yell back.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>dw i’m still writing my other works, i just wrote this on a whim and now it’s here :)</p></blockquote></div></div>
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